Market Stats

According to Kantar Worldpanel the late release of the iPhone X hurt Apple market share in key markets during the 3 months ending October 2017, with Android taking advantage of the situation.

Android gained 4.3 percentage points in the big 5 European markets (and 8.2% in the USA) during period. The analyst says such a drop in iPhone volume share was "somewhat inevitable" when comparing the non-flagship iPhone 8 with the 2016 flagship iPhone 7. One also has to keep in mind at least some customers postponed their iPhone purchase in order to compare the 8 with the X, before deciding whether the premium demanded by the overhauled device is worth it or not.

According to Gartner global smartphone sales total 383 million units in Q3 2017-- a 3% Y-o-Y increase with all top 5 vendors achieving double-digit growth with the exception of Apple, whose growth clocks at 5.7% Y-o-Y.

W. European sales total 36m thanks to growing demand for premium smartphones from top brands. However, the territory lags behind the likes of Greater China, emerging APAC and N. America.

Leading the vendor rankings is Samsung with sales reaching 85m, a 19.3% Y-o-Y increase. The Galaxy S8, S8+ and Note 8 models are main sales drivers, helping the Korean compete against Chinese manufactures. The double-digit growth is the first since Q4 2015.

The analyst also has the results of an online survey of users in the US, UK, Germany, China and India. It shows users still do a lot tasks on PCs, with 40% of respondents using PCs or tablets for certain daily tasks (such as reading or writing detailed emails, or watching video), while 34% use a smartphone for the convenience while on the move.

However users continue holding on to PCs for longer, even as they replace smartphones on a more frequent basis. As a result, traditional PC shipments are forecast to decline by -4.4% in 2018, while mobile phones will grow by 2.4%. The PC market does have a bright spot in PC business shipments returning to growth by end 2017, thanks to faster Windows 10 replacements in regions such as W. Europe.

Apple gains smartphone OS share in the 5 biggest European markets in the 3 months ending August 2017, Kantar Worldpanel reports-- specifically an increase of 1.2% Y-o-Y, as held back by Great Britain.

According to the analyst, while Germany, France, Italy and Spain post iOS growth, Samsung boosted Android growth in Great Britain as the Galaxy S8 and J8 sold well while the flagship Apple smartphones lost momentum ahead to the new iPhone announcement. That said, the decline was "offset slightly" by strong iPhone SE sales.

“Samsung took full advantage of the weeks just before the iPhone 8 and iPhone X were released in Great Britain, with significant promotional activity that helped drive its overall share to a three-year high of 38.4% for the three months ending August 2017,” Kantar says. “More than 1 in 4 Galaxy S8 buyers cited a specific promotion as a key purchase influencer, and almost half said that a good deal on the price of the phone was key to their purchase. Both of these metrics experienced a large increase over the last 2 months of the period.”

According to IDC, the tablet market continued to slide downwards in Q2 2017-- global shipments total 37.9 million, a -3.4% Y-o-Y decline, despite notable product launches such as the new, lower priced iPad.

Not even detachable tablets could save the quarter, as customers prefer to wait for upcoming product refreshes from the high-profile likes of Apple and Microsoft. That said, new product launches towards the end of Q2 should leave detachables in a stronger position on H2 2017.

"There's been a resetting of expectations for detachables as competing convertible notebooks offered a convincing and familiar computing experience for many," the analyst remarks. "To date, the 2-in-1 market was bifurcated as Apple and Microsoft led with detachables while the PC vendors led with convertibles. Though that is slowly changing as smartphone vendors and traditional PC vendors begin to offer compelling alternatives, the pace has been rather slow as Surface and iPad Pro still dominate shelf space and mindshare."

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